ANTHRAX’s SCOTT IAN Says 12 Songs Have Already Been Written For Next Album

Greece’s Metal Kaoz recently conducted an interview with ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian. You can now listen to the chat using the audio player below.

Asked about the progress of the songwriting sessions for ANTHRAX‘s follow-up to 2011’s “Worship Music” album, Ian said: “We’re in the middle of writing right now. That’s just basically all we’ve been doing, is working on songs. We’re just hard, hard, hard at work, with the goal — hopefully — of before the summer, before we go to Europe to start playing festivals, we would love to be able to go into the studio and start recording it.

“We’re going to Europe in the summer to play shows, and then maybe [we can get the] album [out] sometime later this year, but we don’t have any definite schedule yet.”

He added: “We’re just gonna keep writing until we’re happy, until we’re ready. We’re really happy with where we’re at right now, and we’ve got about 12 songs written. Because it’s going so well, we figure, why stop? We’re gonna just keep writing, and if we have too many songs, then we can just pick what we wanna put on the record.”

Regarding whether guitarist Jonathan Donais (SHADOWS FALL) — who joined ANTHRAX in January 2013 following the departure of Rob Caggiano — has been involved in the creative process so far, Ian said: “He hasn’t contributed to the songwriting at this point, but he’s writing leads, that’s for sure.”

ANTHRAX was nominated for a “Best Metal Performance” Grammy this year for its cover of AC/DC‘s “T.N.T.” The track was featured on ANTHRAX‘s eight-track EP that pays tribute to the classic songs by some of the band’s favorite acts from the 1970s. The CD was released in North America on March 19, 2013 (MRI/Megaforce), and on March 22, 2013 in Europe (Nuclear Blast).

“Worship Music” has sold more than 110,000 copies in the United States since its September 2011 release, according to Nielsen SoundScan.